More Questions?? I don’t ask my clients questions with the intention of judging their answers; I ask questions that help me understand them better. They are actually questions we should all ask ourselves occasionally. What makes you happy? What makes you excited? What kinds of things do you do to reward yourself? I can learn a lot about their habits, just from these questions. The reality is, if I am talking with someone about these things, we are trying to discover habits that need to change.
One way to change a habit is to understand the motivation that either drives the behavior, or can be used to change the behavior. What I ask clients for in this case is a list of things that are important to them. I ask them to quickly (in 20 seconds) list the first five things that come to mind and then number them in order of importance-and they have to do it quickly. There are no right answers, and the order is their own judgment-of themselves. This is the first step in making real and honest assessments of where they place value—and where they place THEIR value.
Of course, the list of five important things is personal, but there are a few that are typical like: family, free time, job, finances, home. I always hope that health is up there, too, but often it is not, and it is something we discuss. I make the point that we can address our responsibilities and goals more effectively if we take good care of ourselves first. This is usually the first habit we have to address–the habit of putting ourselves last. Now, I am a strong advocate for putting others first. However, if we do not take care of ourselves, we won’t be as capable of doing that. This opens the door for discussing how to take care of ourselves, by putting our needs in proper perspective. It allows us to discuss food and exercise habits so we can determine what is helping and what is not. Things like our schedule (for eating, exercising and sleeping), our view on proper portions or nutritional values all come into this conversation. It is a great opportunity to learn!
The next question addresses the order they placed on their list of priorities. Is it the order of importance you would like them to have? This results in a little soul searching and can be very enlightening. The great thing is that it provides a framework for building a plan (together) that will allow priorities to align with lifestyle choices. It also provides great motivation for working toward the goals that begin to have a lot more meaning than the generic, “I want to lose weight” or “I want to eat healthier”. Unless you understand more about WHY it is important, you will have a difficult time figuring out HOW to make it happen. It might be surprising how
Spending more time with loved ones is a better motivator than numbers on a scale!
helpful the answers are when you begin to address your individual solution (plan). For example, we might discover that losing weight allows a person to participate in a particular activity or function that leads to more family time-which is in their top five ‘important things’. Knowing this can be more motivating than what a scale will says each week. Another example, ‘eating healthier’, may result in lower healthcare costs if some medications can be eliminated as a result. This would be great if one of your ‘top five’ is finances and how to save money or spend it differently.
As you can see, these questions and the responses to them help us understand ourselves better. We learn what motivates us to form certain habits, or perform tasks, or behave in particular ways. With this new, valuable information we can formulate a new paradigm, we can shift our mindset to a better direction; one that allows our priorities in life to align with and motivate us toward better lifestyle choices.
Suggestions of where and how to start-next time! Until then, be well and make good choices!
Your Best Fitness Friend
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